Surgical catheters of the kind having an inflation cuff or balloon near one end are known. One such catheter is called a Foley catheter. Although the invention is particularly applicable to the production of Foley catheters it can be applied to other types of inflation catheters for example aortic catheters, irrigation catheters, endotracheal tubes or to simple occlusion tubes. Such tubes are herein considered to be embraced by the term "catheter".
Such catheters have inflation cuffs on the catheter shafts. This leads to a problem in that the completed article has a ridge or "step" at each end of the cuff. Many ways have been proposed for avoiding such steps, but none of the known ways have proved to be entirely satisfactory.
An object of the invention is to provide a way of producing a catheter in which at least the ends of the inflation cuff are recessed into the catheter shaft.